First lady visits border as immigration bills hit wall in Washington

First lady Melania Trump visited a facility for immigrant children in Texas on Thursday as lawmakers torpedoed one bill and delayed another that would have provided a long-term fix for the nation’s border crisis. Staff members from Upbring New Hope Children’s Center in McAllen told the first lady ;that the children who arrive at the facility are usually “distraught.” President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order ending a policy that led to the separation of parents from their children, a byproduct of the administration’s “zero tolerance” policy the first lady said she “hated” to see.

Lawmakers from both parties urged the president to end the policy, but they have had less success coming up with their own solution. Republican leaders brought one bill to the House floor for a vote Thursday afternoon and delayed a second compromise package. Neither had enough votes to pass. Despite the impending legislative failure, Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., earlier in the day called the votes a “legitimate exercise” because they blocked an effort by moderate Republicans and Democrats to force a discharge petition vote that would have sent the top vote-getter among four bills on to the Senate for consideration. “Our goal was to prevent a discharge petition from reaching the floor, because a discharge petition would have brought legislation to the floor that the president would have surely vetoed,” Ryan said during his weekly press briefing.